


A Real Sunset

by Mserio



Category: Original Work
Genre: Asylum, Fantasy, Fiction, Girl - Freeform, Other, Short Story, originalwork - Freeform, powers
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-10-20
Updated: 2020-10-20
Packaged: 2021-03-08 17:22:48
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,305
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27120379
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Mserio/pseuds/Mserio
Summary: Basically, this is a short story I wrote a couple of years ago. I'm not expecting anyone to like it, but I thought I'd post it anyways in case. There is a shooting in the story so just be warned. I think this is just one of the story concepts I really enjoy and can't seem to get rid of.





	A Real Sunset

They’ve convinced me I belong here. I’ve known I belong here since I was twelve. I can’t imagine another place where I could possibly belong, yet, I still long to experience the world. I only remember a few things from those dozen years. Mainly, I remember the fire, burning and pain, lots of it. I hadn’t known it then, but people had hated me for what I was, for what It was. I know I had parents, they probably didn’t love me, but I had had a home once. That must have been before It had made her appearance. I didn’t find my real home until this place. This was a place where I had some friends and could be myself without too much punishment. Well, most of the time.  
A light buzz interrupts my intense train of thought, causing me to look up from the book I had not been reading for the last hour. The buzzing continues, warning me of someone’s arrival, but no one comes. They probably don’t know that It is hiding now.  
“If you think I’m floating in the air or something, then, I’m not.” I say, but then look down. I was floating a foot in the air again, It was up to her old tricks. I instruct her to put me down, and she obeys. Touching the white, tiled floor, I call out again,” Well, now I’m not!”  
I have absolutely no idea if those managing the buzzes and locks can hear me, but as if in response, I hear the familiar click of a lock. For a moment, fear builds in my chest as I wait to see who will walk through the iron doorway that remains my only exit from this padded room. If Abigail, the asylum director, were to walk through, my fear would escalate, and I would cringe away from her long-winded lecture on letting It proceed with her shenanigans. However, when I truly see the face of who might be visiting me, the tension in my chest immediately morphs into relief and joy.  
A round face peeks through the iron doorway, smiling as she looks at me. Bo’s black framed glasses add a bit of structure to the kind oval that is her face. Golden, but surely messy, curls cascade from her head, and hover over her shoulders.  
“Hey, I have your dinner,” she says. She walks in the room, a soft smile plastered on her face, causing a wide grin to spread across mine. Then, unexpectedly, a frown spoils her usually serene expression.  
“Did It do something today?” she asks, noticing the straightjacket that secures my arms in an unusable position to my chest. A small note of sternness poisons her usually sweet voice. Despite all pretenses, I know that the bitterness is not meant for me but reserved for the head of the asylum; a specific person named Abigail. On the occasions that I allow It to have her fun, the workers here will lock me in my pristine, white room. And if she causes a lot of trouble, they put me in the jacket, under the false pretense that it helps me contain my powers, as they call them.  
Bo doesn’t like seeing me detained like this, in some ways, it seems, seeing me defenseless hurts her. On multiple occasions, she has tried to defend me in saying that I can’t control It, and my powers are irrepressible. She knows much better, but for my sake, she plays the ignorant card.  
“She might have had a little fun at lunch.” I say, sheepishly,” I thought it was funny, but I guess they didn’t. Not especially after Keith got potatoes in his hair!”  
“Oh, so that’s what the commotion was about! I thought Shira had attacked someone at the very least!” Bo says, barely managing to suppress a giggle.  
I laugh aloud anyways, the reference striking me as eternally funny. Shira is another ward of the asylum, and she is also my neighbor. On the few junctures that I have met her, she struck me as intensely odd and desensitized. One time I heard a doctor call her words like psychopath and sociopath. Not knowing at the time what those meant, I looked it up in the dictionary (one I had procured by convincing It to steal it for me) and learned that Shira was capable of no compassion and it took a lot for her to feel the slightest emotion. Since then, I have dubbed her easily as the craziest, and most cynical person in the asylum. At lunch, she sits surrounded by guards, whom she has tried to stab with a spoon on an instance.  
Runner up for craziest person here is Kit, but for opposite reasons than Shira. Kit’s room is across the hall from me. Sporadically, I get to visit her, but she spends a lot of time locked in that room. Kit is extremely simple and very quiet. She rarely talks but spends most of her time listening. She can be a little dull when she is not whispering chains of Latin proverbs to inanimate objects but is great company when one simply wishes to vent. I’ll sometimes bother her when It gets antsy and is driving me crazy. Or, at least, as crazy as one can get in here. Lastly, I probably place third in the crazy competition, not because of my mind, or lack of one, but because of It and her abilities.  
Bo walks across the room and sets the metal tray of food onto the iron, two-legged table that remains the centerpiece of my chamber, the light clinking of metal against metal bringing me back into reality again. On the tray lies a sloppy scoop of bland porridge and to the side of that, a relatively small portion of green beans. The portions are slightly larger than those typical for a ward to get, but Bo always manages to convince the cooks to give me a little bit more. This act of friendship always buys us a little more time to talk, as she is required to supervise me as I eat.  
After I plow through the porridge and beans, I set my fork down and look at Bo nervously,” Hey Bo, can I ask you something?”  
She nods a yes, and I respond, “Why can’t I go outside?”  
The question is simple and to the point, but it stuns Bo into a lapse of silence. After what seems like intense consideration, she looks up from her feet and answers, “Because there are cruel people in this world. People who don’t like to accept people who are different.”  
“But, I could…” I begin to argue, but before I can form a convincible thesis, Bo cuts me off with a harsh Enough! and walks out the room without another word. She doesn’t even stay to help me back into the jacket, and instead, she sends in some new, inexperienced worker to try and figure it out. I’m pretty much the expert on getting straight jackets on, so all he must do is zip me up, without fainting from fear of being assaulted by a psychiatric ward. Just for fun, as he walks out of the room, and is about to padlock the heavy-iron door, I hiss at him, causing his already pale face to lighten a shade more.  
So sincerely scared by me, he fumbles with the door and is twenty feet away before it even shuts. He doesn’t even bother to lock it. I try to hold my laughter in, but in immense failure, I burst into tears and sink to my knees, cracking up. Bo’s abrupt departure hasn’t fazed me all too much, for I had predicted it would happen. You know, with my telepathic abilities, foresight is just another plus… just kidding. A few times before, we had landed on this subject, and Bo’s reaction was always the same, just varying in levels of harshness. The only reason I asked this time, is because I was sixteen the last time I did… that was two years ago.  
I am about to stand up and run my hands over my half-shaved head (It had broken their razor before they could finish the job), in attempt to calm my laughter, when the I hear it. The first shot rings out, loud and clear, then the panicked screams follow, muffled by the thickly insulated walls that surround me. Without thinking of the consequences or the danger I might be putting myself in, I open the unlocked door, courtesy of the newest asylum worker, and walk out into the hallway.  
It follows close behind, and I remind her to follow my every order, and she easily complies. I think the peril of the impending situation has blanketed her usual facetious nature. Noiselessly, I walk through the hallways, following the sounds of loud cracks and screams, until I find myself in the main entrance lobby. The scene that greets me is grisly and horrifying, more so than you would find in your average asylum.  
Glass and ceramic litter the carpeted floor, posing a threat to bare feet like mine. The normally clean, white walls are decorated with tiny, perfect droplets of blood, as red as the roses that lay trodden to pulp on the floor. The sight of blood sparks curiosity and fear in me, as to who it once belonged to. As an answer, bodies lay, slumped against the wall, puddles of dark red, and lethal looking blood widening with every second. The noise of the room is almost indescribable, with multiple layers and origins creating an orchestra of terrifying sound. Shrill screams and incoherent yells act as the base of the chaotic din, then they are sprinkled and peppered with the whizzing of bullets, and the dinging of them ricocheting off the many metal beams of the asylum. Finally, and most saddening, the noise is topped by the occasional dull thud of a bullet finding its mark.  
Then, the epicenter of the chaos finds himself at the front of the room, holding a long black thing, that I assume is a gun. He is waving it around like a madman, pulling the trigger as he goes, releasing round after round of bullets. The man is dressed in all black, with even a black cloth covering his face, two small slit cuts into it so he can see. The only flash of color I see on him, comes from a pendent he wears around his neck, it’s a silver cross.  
This is the man Bo must have been talking about. I think. Sensing my pain, It acts before I even tell her to, and approaches the madman without fear. He cannot see or hurt her, so the look of surprise as she begins to cut off his air supply is genuine. A bullet ricochets off the wall, whizzes through my hair, and nicks my neck, causing blood to trickle down my back. The man looks at me, with wild eyes, barely visible through the slits cut in the cloth. He uses his last breath to shout the meaningless word heathen at me, and shoots another spray of bullets, this time, all of them aimed at me.  
The security guards have begun to move out from behind their barricades, and are now tackling the man, It’s job finished. Though, that means nothing to me now, because before I can instruct It to move me out of harm's way, Bo has materialized out of thin air, and is leaping in front of me. Something sends her flying back, stumbling into my folded arms. My face gets buried in her soft, golden curls. Unable to support her in my straight jacket, It comes over and helps me lay her down. Immediately, I know something is wrong. Bo’s face is ashen and sickly, but more concerning is the blood that quickly spreads across her chest, staining her white uniform. A dark, cavernous hole is the source of all the blood, caused by a bullet that was meant for me. Bo stares at me through her now fogged up glasses, her eyes sparkling with tears that will never be shed.  
“Go” she says, her voice haggard and faint, scaring me beyond belief,” Go! Be free, Sara.” After that, she says no more, but instead uses the last of her energy to close her eyes. All movement ceases in her face, and my eyes well with tears. The salty water rolls from my face, and onto hers, collecting in raindrops upon her marble cheeks. I obey her last instructions and run out the doors of my true home, and into the sunset of the real world.  
After hours of running, I find myself lying in the cool grass of a park, too exhausted to take another step. It lays dormant inside of me, too weighed down by grief to move. I feel so lost in myself, in my grief, I feel as though I will never find my way. For a while, I stare at the full moon in the night sky above me, tears lightly falling down my face. Then I hear a voice beside me ask,” Are you okay? I like your straightjacket. What’s your name? I’m Sen”  
I don’t answer, and so she continues,” Hey, you look like you need a friend. I could be that. Would you want that?”  
I look over at her, and I am about to shake my head, when I realize that this was the real world. This is what Bo wanted. So instead of shaking my head in a denial, I nod it. She gets up, and walks away, expecting me to follow, and I do. I follow her into the night, hoping for a clearer future or a final home.


End file.
